


you know how these things work

by erebones



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: First Time, In Media Res, M/M, Tattoos, cecil is embarrassed and carlos is an awkward hot mess, sex on a couch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2013-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-22 16:36:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/915511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one had ever spoken this way to Carlos before. No one had ever said the things that Cecil said – outrageous, far-fetched, mesmerizing, impossible. And Carlos ate them up. He rolled in the praise like a dog in a field of flowers, writhed under Cecil’s delicious weight as he sought the lovely mouth where lovelier words poured constantly into the humid air between them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you know how these things work

Carlos looked down at where his hand was resting, and gave a full-body twitch that shook off Cecil’s reciprocating touch. Cecil hurried to push down his sleeves, irrationally embarrassed. “Sorry. They have minds of their own.”

“Uh. It’s – it’s okay. I mean, I’ve seen weirder things around here than – oh, damn. That’s not what I meant.”

Cecil’s normally bright, effervescent smile was stretched thin and taut like an unhappy E string. “I understand.” He unfolded himself off the ratty old couch in Carlos’ apartment – which took some doing, given the couch’s immensely squishy and welcoming properties – and flicked imaginary specks of dust off his tweed trousers. Imaginary dust specks were even worse than the unimaginary ones; letting any strays crawl into his pockets would not be good for the native species at his own apartment. “I really ought to be getting back, anyway.”

“What? Cecil –” Before the long-legged radio host could slink away, Carlos had jumped up and wrapped his arms around Cecil from behind. With Cecil’s arms pinned to his sides like this, Carlos could feel the errant tremors running up and down just under his skin, the thick, twisting tentacles tattooed on his body curling and shuddering nervously. He slackened his hold a little bit, stroked a fingertip over Cecil’s wrist where it was bent awkwardly against his trouser seam. “Just… hang on. Please.”

“Hang onto what?” came the sonorous reply, honestly curious.

Carlos’ mouth curled up and he pressed his smile to the back of Cecil’s neck. The skin was warm and smooth, and he could feel the hard bone of his _vertebra prominens_ against his lips and teeth. “I’m sorry. Please don’t leave.”

“Well of course I won’t _leave_ ,” Cecil muttered, as if it were the worst possible thing he could think of. Still, he was tense until Carlos gave his hand a squeeze and released him, sitting back onto the couch with a _floomph_ of dust and the smell of used-furniture store. He knew Cecil was watching -even with his eyes on the floor - as he found the hem of his periodic  table tee-shirt, threadbare and worn and comforting between his fingers, and pulled it roughly over his head. His curls, already tousled from a quarter-hour of lazy necking on the couch, went haywire.  A strangled sound emerged from somewhere around the vicinity of Cecil’s throat.

“See?” Carlos said, spreading his arms a little awkwardly. The rush of cool air brought gooseflesh rising up his chest, pebbling his nipples, but he didn’t drop his arms again until Cecil had lowered himself, incredibly slowly, to sit beside him on the couch. “You’re not the only one with tats.”

“Oh,” Cecil said, very faintly. After a moment – a very long moment during which Cecil’s eyes seemed to glaze over and the mark on his forehead quivered very faintly – he cleared his throat and folded his hands politely. “What is it of?”

Carlos grinned. “Well, it’s a lot of things. This is a sun, of course, with a _calavera_ inside – you know, the Día de los Muertos skull?”

Cecil did, but his ideas about the Day of the Dead weren’t precisely accurate.

“They don’t actually rise from the dead,” Carlos laughed. “At least not... where I'm from. Ah. Sorry to disappoint you.”

“And these?” Cecil was growing bolder now. He traced the curling path of an orangey-red Chinese dragon with one spidery finger, which disappeared around the generous curve of Carlos’ ribcage. Carlos twitched, this time ticklishly, his mouth cracked in a wide grin.

“I just liked the look of them.” He reached out and wrapped his fingers around Cecil’s bony wrist, feeling the quick slick slide of tattoos fleeing from contact. “Now you.”

Cecil’s face fell. “I…”

“Cecil.” Carlos licked his lips, gathered his courage. “Come here.”

“I am here,” Cecil began to say, but was cut off as Carlos leaned close enough to brush their mouths together. It was light and soft, chaste compared to the sloppy inelegance of their earlier techniques; but it was a nice kiss, regardless. Cecil melted a little bit into Carlos’ solid warmth, and the stiff brush of the cotton-polyester blend of Cecil’s shirt was weirdly erotic against Carlos’ bare skin. He hummed against Cecil’s thin mouth, and felt the curl of his smile sharp and welcoming.

Carlos leaned back, hands coaxing Cecil down with firm, welcoming pressure at his back and waist, but Cecil resisted. “What about… should I…” he stammered, uncharacteristically stumbling over his words as he flushed a dark mahogany and plucked at the buttons of his shirt. Carlos caught his hands up and brought them to his mouth to kiss.

“Never mind about that. I just want to be close to you.”

Another strangled squeak was torn from Cecil’s throat, and he laid down hastily, their legs all jumbled and mismatched along the length of the couch. Breathless, relishing the weight of him, Carlos held Cecil tighter and ran his mouth along the strained curve of his neck. He felt the wild bob of Cecil’s throat and the quiver of his skin, and smiled; the indents of his teeth pressed lightly against the trachea, and this time Cecil nearly groaned.

“I like to hear you,” Carlos murmured, more vibration against warm skin than sound waves passing through the air.

“Carlos.” It was a strained whisper, muttered into the slightly sweat-damp curls at Carlos’ temple, and it made his blood sing and his trousers tighten in certain unmentionable places. Carlos panted, tasting the warm skin, and welcomed one of Cecil’s thighs between his own with a grateful, guttural sigh.

“You’re amazing,” Carlos said, as honestly as he knew how. Looking up, he could see the mark in the center of Cecil’s forehead was glowing faintly, pulsing in time with the rapid-tempo flutter of Cecil’s heartbeat that Carlos had been tasting a moment ago. “So beautiful.”

“Stop,” Cecil protested faintly. His long, knobbly fingers buried themselves in Carlos’ wild hair and dug in, hard. “God, Carlos.”

“Stop what?” Carlos teased. He drew his fingers up the sweat-soaked lumbar curve of Cecil’s spine, the cloth dragging deliciously at the infinitesimal grooves of his fingertips. “I’m just reporting the facts. And I’m a scientist. Facts are my trade… _gorgeous_.”

Cecil made another noise, an adorable one, somewhere between a grunt and a mewl that caught at Carlos’ heart like the rough edge of a hangnail, only when he pulled at it, it didn’t hurt to tear it away. He sank his teeth into Cecil’s neck and Cecil positively _howled._  He jerked above him, his entire body invested in the ragged motion of his hips, and Carlos dragged his mouth away as Cecil curled into himself in mortification.

“Cecil?”

“Mng.”

“Cecil?” A little worried, Carlos tugged at his boyfriend’s shoulders until Cecil uncurled a little and met his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he groaned, as pink as an overripe peach. “That was terribly uncouth of me.”

“Did you just…” Carlos couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence – he was blushing too much to be coherent. And anyway, Cecil’s expression said it all.

“Sorry,” he said again, ducking his head.

“Don’t apologize,” Carlos blurted. “It’s – kind of hot, actually.”

Cecil blinked rapidly, and the mark on his forehead quivered even more. “I just ejaculated in my pants without you hardly touching me, and you think it’s _hot_?”

“Well… yeah.” He shrugged helplessly. “It’s nice to be… wanted, like that. No one’s ever wanted me that way before, or... or that much.”

Cecil stared blankly at him for a long time, and Carlos was starting to worry he’d said the wrong thing. But then, abruptly, Cecil’s lanky arms flew into motion, and he sat up a bit on his knees so that he could get his kit off properly. Long, spidery fingers fumbled slightly on the buttons of his crisp shirt, and then he was shrugging out of the garment and dropping it to the floor.

Carlos stared. “God, Cecil. They’re… amazing.”

And because he couldn’t bear to keep his hands to himself any longer, he spread his fingers and ran the palms of his hands up Cecil’s firm belly to his chest, where countless thick indigo-black tentacles curled and twisted shyly. Cecil, stiff at first, slowly relaxed, thawing into Carlos’ touch, and the tattoos followed suit. Soon Carlos could feel them brushing back, little tentative kisses as the surface of Cecil’s skin rippled to seek out his warm, firm caresses.

“God,” Cecil breathed, and he was heavy-lidded, eyes still sharp beneath his pale lashes as he rocked his hips just a little in Carlos’ lap.

“Again?” Carlos whispered, strung out between hope and disbelief.

“Yeah.” That deep, verdant voice was a little rough around the edges, and Cecil didn’t bother to clear it. A rumble rolled up from the depths of his chest, and Carlos nearly came right then and there. “Can I take your jeans off?”

“Y-yeah. Sure.” Carlos dropped his hands, trembling, as Cecil wriggled backward and got his clever fingers working his button and flies. He didn’t stop to marvel at Carlos’ bare skin, dark like melted chocolate in the very dim light of the sitting room; instead Cecil dragged pants and boxer-briefs all the way off in one smooth motion, crouching spider-like at the end of the couch with one leg bent to brace his weight against the ground. “You now,” Carlos begged, knees drawing up slightly at the spine-tingling exposure.

Cecil worried his bottom lip with sharp teeth, shoving at his own trousers – wool, ridiculous in this heat, but cut _so_ nicely, especially at the back – until he stood in all his long, honey-smooth glory. Carlos wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. An octopus tentacle, maybe,  or an undefinable gender-nonconforming genital miasma, or even a glimpse of the incomprehensible void where Cecil’s prick should have been. But he was shockingly, startlingly ordinary in that area: a bit on the short side, and thin, but with a generous head that was nearly blood-red as it peeked from the folds of an equally generous foreskin. Carlos’ mouth watered at the sight of it.

“Come here,” he rasped, and when Cecil clambered eagerly on top of him the hot slide of skin on skin was dazzling.

“You’re lovely, so lovely,” Cecil murmured encouragingly, and Carlos choked out desperate noises into Cecil’s neck as he clutched at the smooth, sweaty planes of his back. “Can’t get enough of you my darling, my beautiful Carlos.”

No one had ever spoken this way to Carlos before. No one had ever said the things that Cecil said – outrageous, far-fetched, mesmerizing, impossible. And Carlos ate them up. He rolled in the praise like a dog in a field of flowers, writhed under Cecil’s delicious weight as he sought the lovely mouth where lovelier words poured constantly into the humid air between them. Cecil kissed back fiercely, with abandon, and it seemed to Carlos that the cool of the tentacle tattoos was a surge of electricity on his overheated chest and stomach. They were everywhere, the indigo splotching and swirling down Cecil’s back and arms and up his throat to his face; when Carlos kissed him, he could taste the sharpness of ink and electrical storms on Cecil’s tongue.

“Gorgeous,” Carlos gasped, forced out between ragged inhales – when he looked up from the small, limp couch pillow, askew where it was wedged beneath his head, his heart hammered unsteadily in his chest and he felt his whole body tighten.

Cecil was above him still, eyes wide and vacant, face flushed and mouth slack with pleasure and the addictive seeking-out of openmouthed kisses. His thin lips were gleaming with saliva, and his glasses were askew, pushed up into the coarse tangle of his hair. And in the center of his forehead, wide open and staring back at him, was a third eye.

“Jesus Christ,” Carlos squeaked, and came.

*

Cecil didn’t take much to find his second orgasm. The sight of Carlos writhing and groaning openly beneath him, of his cock pulsing thick white onto his belly, was more than enough. He groaned, teeth together, nostrils flaring, and felt his body jerk with the force of it, tearing through him like a tidal wave. “ _Fuck_ ,” he gritted out, because sex peeled away all his polite radio host filters, and he collapsed limply on top of Carlos with a strung-out groan. The second was always better than the first, he reflected absently.

“Cecil…”

Oh, no. Carlos didn’t sound as completely blissed-out and thoughtless as Cecil had been hoping for. Did he need another orgasm? Maybe three or four? He knew they did things differently in other parts of the country. Maybe Carlos hadn’t wanted to come at all – maybe he’d wanted to do it another way, a proper way.

“Was it not good?” Cecil burst out before the questions could rise up and take flight from the cloudy fringes of his brain stem. “Did I – I’m sorry, that was all wrong, I should’ve – there aren’t even any _candles_ , god –”

“Cecil.” Carlos was shaking slightly under him. When Cecil gathered the presence of mind to actually look down at him, he found the scientist had covered his eyes with one hand and was trying very hard to keep his laughter from spilling over those perfect tombstone teeth. “Shut up. It was perfect, of course, and you’re utterly brilliant. Also…” The fingers cracked open, permitting a slice of cacao-brown eye to peer through. “You’ve, ah. Got a third eye?”

Cecil froze, horrified.

“Shhh,” Carlos whispered, moving quickly to rub his upper arms where the tattoos had gone utterly still. “Don’t freak out. It’s okay, I promise. I just wasn’t expecting it.”

“It’s not there all the time,” Cecil said miserably, covering his forehead with one hand. “Just when I forget to keep it closed.”

“Can you close it now?”

“Not… no. I need to concentrate, and you’re… distracting me.” Still, in spite of his embarrassment, he allowed himself to be drawn down to lie on Carlos’ broad, curly-haired chest. He dropped his hand from his forehead reluctantly to comb through the coarse hair with his fingers.

“Sorry,” Carlos murmured, not sounding sorry at all. Cecil huffed, and only got a giggle in response. “Any other surprises you’ve got hidden away? Another pair of arms? Another dick?”

“Don’t be crude,” Cecil complained, but he was smiling into Carlos’ neck. “Nothing else, for now.”

“For now?”

“Carlos. You’ve been living in Night Vale for a year and a half. You know how these things work.”

Carlos snorted into Cecil’s flyaway hair and smoothed it back carefully from his forehead. His touch was gentle, tender even, as he avoided poking or prodding the third unblinking eye. “Something tells me I don’t know the half of it,” he whispered, but somehow – for the very first time in eighteen months – the thought didn’t bother him all that much. 

**Author's Note:**

> I like my Cecils ambiguous, but here I imagine him to be rather tall and lanky, probably Native American or of Asian descent. Thanks go to Tay for introducing me to WTNV :).


End file.
